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Monday, 25 April 2016

A-Z Challenge 2016: U is for Uxor

The further back in time you go (in parish records, that is), the less and less they seem to think of women. Children are baptised as the son or daughter of John 'and his wife'. Then the son or daughter of 'John', with no wife mentioned at all. I have even come across a marriage record which stated that on a certain date, 'James married his wife'!

Uxor is the Latin for wife. So, among the highly-stylised Secretary Hand (can you believe it was supposed to make things clearer?) and the mystifying abbreviations (which were probably not at all mystifying to the person who wrote them), you come across 'et uxor', or 'et ux'. All this means is 'and wife'.

8 comments:

I've always thought that it's the treatment of women throughout religious history that's colored life history. Women are at fault for everything and unworthy of anything! This is man's doing and a lot of them are 'religious'!

Well that's charming isn't it - a woman goes through the hell of child birth and doesn't even get a mention! I'm glad this has progressed a lot. I have to admit "John married his wife" kind of made me giggle :)Debbie

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I live in the Southwest of England. I write children's books in my spare time; in my other spare time I author blogs on genealogy, Star Trek and writing. In my other other spare time I study and work on genealogy on WikiTree.